Nerve Injury from Dental Implant: What to do.
Q: I think I have a nerve injury from dental implant surgery of last week. What should I do? My dentist tells me that I should wait another week to confirm that it is a nerve injury from the recent dental implant surgery.
A: Nerve injuries from dental implant usually occur in the lower jaw when bone is drilled or implant is placed in the back area of the lower jaw. Sometimes traumatic reflection of the flap (pulling soft tissue away from bone) in the premolar area can cause nerve (mental nerve) injury. If you think you are having a nerve injury from dental implant, you need to be sure of the symptoms that you are having after the dental implant surgery.
Symptoms of Nerve Injury from Dental Implant
Some of the signs and symptoms of nerve injury from dental implant are numbness, burning sensation, prickling sensation with or without being provoked or no sensation of pain in the affected area. Because placing dental implants in the back area of the lower jaw may injure the inferior alveolar nerve, the injury caused by dental implant surgery affects the lower half of lip and cheek of the surgery side.
Dental implant is placed close to the nerve.
If the implant is impinging on the nerve, the dentist must remove the implant as soon as possible. Most dentists take x-ray of the dental implants after placing them to document the surgery. The x-ray shows where the implant, the nerve and bordering teeth are. If the dental implant is too close or penetrating the nerve canal, the dentist will either screw out the implant away from the nerve or remove the implant.
If you are having numbness, burning sensation, prickling sensation or no sensation of pain in the lower jaw or lip area of the implant surgery side, tell your dentist of the symptoms right away. If the dentist decides that your symptom or symptoms are from nerve injury from the dental implant, he will remove it right away.
If there is a nerve injury from dental implant or from any surgery or trauma to the nerve, the symptoms can last a few weeks or several months. The injured nerve may heal and recover with time. Sometimes the damage can be permanent. Prudent and experienced dentists are careful when placing implants and will prevent nerve injuries from dental implant surgeries.
